we sift the sand for remedy, we ghost-seers carrying our cinnamon dead

we stir the news, history, like an oracle shimmering violent

catching names in our throats before they vanish under starless storm & urge

we vex the spire, trouble the sway

Wake baby, wake child, this lullaby will break the cage

You will taste the blood of your brothers in our milk, remembering

their glorious beauty as it warms your throat, you will

not know the cold of the concrete that swallowed them whole.

We are a swarm, a pride, a righteous and thick army

Wake, wake.

You will see G-d in the faces of your sisters, you will remember

how they fought five hundred years under an archive of scars, you will

hear their steps when you run, when you

march to the beat of the thundering lung

gasping for air, you will know this fight

to breathe beneath your darkest skin

& you will see & you will raze the reddest fields

gather the pulp of every fruit let it whisper your ear up

sculpt a dream, a name, a vow

Til, baby, til, child,

Til the Taste of Free in Our Mouths

Added: Friday, January 1, 2016 / Used with permission.

Heidi Andrea Restrepo Rhodes is a queer, mixed-race, second-generation Colombian immigrant, writer, scholar, artist, and activist. Currently the Outreach Representative for Queer and Trans* Incarcerated poets for Nepantla: A Journal for Queer People of Color, she is committed to creative work as a practice of witness, social documentation, historical memory, of radical healing, of provocation to action, and as a tool for liberation. Her poetry has been seen or is forthcoming in a number of literary journals and anthologies, including Kudzu House Review, As/Us, Feminist Studies Journal, Yellow Medicine Review, Write Bloody’s We Will Be Shelter, and others. Her chapbook, 'The Inheritance of Haunting' will be released by Raspa in 2016. She currently lives in Brooklyn.

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